MHS Students' Robotics Team Scores 7th Highest in World

MHS Students' Robotics Team Scores 7th Highest in World

Posted on 02/01/2018

Mason High School freshmen Shankar Kalavalolanu and Shyam Sekar, sophomores Arnav Komaragiri and Michael Valcarcel and student mentor and senior Keerthi Sekar formed robotics team Quantum Leap - which came away with top honors at the Cincinnati Regional Qualifying FIRST Robotics Competition January 26-27.
FIRST Tech Challenge teams are challenged to design, build, program, and operate robots to compete in a head-to-head challenge in an alliance format.
Participants call it “the hardest fun you’ll ever have!”
Guided by adult Coaches and Mentors, students develop STEM skills and practice engineering principles (like keeping an engineering notebook), while realizing the value of hard work, innovation, and sharing ideas.
Team Quantum Leap advances to the Ohio State Championship on February 17, at iSPACE Scarlet Oaks campus in Sharonville, and scored the seventh highest score in the world with their alliance.

“We qualified for the Ohio State Championship and scored 473 points in a match! This is our second year in a row to advance to the State Championships,” said Keerthi Sekar.

The team also won several other impressive awards.

3rd Place Winner of the Inspire Award - This award is given to the team that truly embodies the ‘challenge’ of the FIRST® Tech Challenge program. The team that receives this award is a strong ambassador for FIRST programs and a role model FIRST Tech Challenge team.

Winner of the Control Award - This award is given to the team that demonstrates innovative thinking in the control system to solve game challenges such as autonomous operation, enhancing mechanical systems with intelligent control, or using sensors to achieve better results on the field.

Winner of the Promote Award - The Promote Award is given to the team that is most successful in creating a compelling video message for the public designed to change our culture and celebrate science, technology, engineering and math.